theopneustos.

Anonymous Asked:

/watch?v=D1FdtpH8lSI - I have a tentative interest in mythology/theology and the links between religions has always fascinated me, I’ve never really considered how a Christian would respond to the link. I know the video isn’t a credible source per se but it succinctly collates most of which I’ve read. This isn’t an attack or anything, I tend to avoid in engaging in theological debates, but I’m interested how a christian would respond.

These “paganism turned Christianity” kinds of theories died out almost entirely in the 19th century, mostly because there’s no evidence that they’re true. Let’s look at just a few of the claims made by the video and see how they hold up to even some brief examination.

The story of Horus.

According to the video, Horus was born on December 25th, of the virgin Isis-mary, with a star in the east, which three kings followed to adore him; he grew up a wise child teacher; he was baptized at 30 by Anup; he travelled with 12 disciples performing healing and nature miracles; he had such names as “the way,” “the truth,” “lamb of God” and “the good shepherd;” he was betrayed by Typhon, crucified, buried for 3 days, and then resurrected. The video even claims that our words “horizon” and “sunset” come from the Horus story; a claimed “daily battle” in which the resurrection of Horus was seen (really though? Every night? Christ only rose once; there’s no parallel). [As a note on the etymology of those words, “horizon” comes from Old French, and “sunset” is a compound English word. Unless Egyptians spoke either of those languages, I think the similarity is simply coincidence.]

Wow! That sounds a lot like Christianity! But should we throw away our faith just yet? Probably not. In fact, the video makes a very telling admission: “These attributes of Horus, whether original or not…”[x]. See, in the 19th century, a whole lot of people figured out that we don’t have any evidence of these claims as part of the Horus mythos until the 2nd or 3rd centuries after Christ—but more on that later. 

Here’s the thing: The video doesn’t even get the basic facts about Horus right. Let’s go over them again:

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osram-akoma:

The awkward moment when people do not know the history of Christianity or that the Bible had 600 books before the council of Nicea selected their top books for political agendas. The awkward moment when Christ was taken to Kemet for protection from Herod, which is Africa. The  [censored]  awkward moment when the Black Israelites are made to seem non-existent even though they were there before the migration. The sad and awkward moment when Jesus was always portrayed as black before Byzantine art And finally the ridiculously [censored] awkward moment when the first beings were African. 

That awkward moment when no canonical list ever had 600 books. That awkward moment when the Council of Nicea didn’t talk about the canon at all. That awkward moment when you confuse the Da Vinci Code with a reliable historical source. That awkward moment when the rest of your post isn’t awkward for anyone but the American nominal Christian who isn’t actually a Christian in the first place. 

Well that was fun. I mean no harm, but you’ve made a lot of truth claims that seem to be blatantly wrong or irrelevant. If you’d like to supply some sources for those claims (like where on earth you got 600 books in the Christian canon from!) I’d be glad to review them! But I think it would be to your benefit to revisit your sources and do some fact-checking, so that you don’t unintentionally make intellectually dishonest claims on the internet! 

(via osram-akoma-deactivated20120229)

Anonymous asked: EVERYTHING you say is bullshit. god is seriously not real, you are your own guide and only you can save yourself.

I don’t normally indulge this nonsense, but this is filled with such ignorance that it’s hard not to leap headlong with education, that said ignorance might be chastened. 

You say God does not exist. It seems that you are asserting—for assertion it is, overwhelmingly devoid of any argument (or intellectual content, for that matter)—that there has never been, and never will be, at any point in space or time, such a person or persons as might be called ‘god(s).’ This is, of course, self-refuting. You see, to make such a statement, you must hold absolute knowledge of all points of space and time; you are claiming that you are omniscient. As omniscience is one of the attributes ascribed to deity, you are, if your claim is true, such a person that might indeed be called god. Your claim inherently refutes itself. 

I must ask (and I paraphrase Lewis here): What do they teach in these schools?

threequartersup asked: I stopped reading that post about atrocities when you said Hitler was an atheist. Please, research your history. He used the Lutheran church to gain power. He thought he was doing God's work. Don't embarrass yourself like that anymore. It happened so long ago, that someone really can't be that stupid. Sorry.

Even if you removed Hitler’s work, the total is still 51 million deaths on atheism’s count (unless you’re prepared to say Mao and Stalin were religious), over 51 years. 1 million people dead per year at the hands of atheistic regimes.

This is actually a pretty common claim by the uneducated atheist: “Hitler was a Christian! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” So was he? Was Hitler a Christian? It’s a bit more complicated than a simple no, but…no, not really. In fact, the questioner here gives away the truth: “[Hitler] used [religion] to gain power.”

What Hitler espoused was not Christianity as we know it today. Hitler stressed Christ as an Aryan figure, fighting against the Jews. Hitler mocked the idea of a bodily resurrection of Christ in favor of a spiritual resurrection. This Positive Christianity removed any Jewish aspects from Christianity (i.e. the Old Testament, the Apostle Paul). This was rejected by prominent members of the Confessing Church (Protestantism, and more specifically Lutheranism) such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer. More on clergy later. For now, Hitler’s idea of Christ:

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.

Speech April 12, 1922 (as cited in Norman Baynes “The Speeches of Adolf Hitler.”

This kind of Aryan Christ hints at Hitler’s study of Nietzsche, and the Übermensch mentality that Nietzsche taught. To be fair, Nietzsche didn’t teach that this was inherited, and also did not teach the antisemitism of the Nazi movement, but Nietzsche and Darwin are clearly two of the greatest influences on Hitler’s ideology. 

So what happened to clergy members who didn’t agree with him? Clergy who held to the fundamental confessions of their faith, whether Catholic or Protestant? For the most part, Hitler had them sent to death camps. The Catholic Church in Poland was under particular attack: 3,000 clergy members (or %18) were murdered, with 1,992 of these killings taking place in concentration camps [see here]. Further plans were in place for the complete destruction of German Christianity, subverting fundamental Christian doctrine with Positive Christianity (which is, for all intents and purposes, synonymous with antisemitism) [see here, and here]. Hitler himself told Hermann Rauschnig that he aimed “to stamp out Christianity root and branch” (as qtd. in Paul Johnson, “The Necessity of Christianity,” Truth 1, 1995). 

If you must label Hitler as religious, then you must also realize that this man was his own god. He payed lip-service to providence, but never once did he act in such a manner as to be called “Christian.” However to call Hitler religious would be to equivocate “religion”—a set of beliefs about the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe—with what was actually a socio-political ideology. It’s a blatant lie to say that Hitler’s actions were religious in origin.